


How the Other Half Lives

by OverWroughtThought



Series: Weird Tentacle Romance [2]
Category: Acquisitions Inc., Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The "C" Team
Genre: Bumped the rating for violence in chapter 3, Crisis of Faith, Drow Sign Language, Drow culture, Enemies to Friends, Entropy, Language, Loss of Identity, M/M, Oppressive Matriarchy, Other, Shared Dream Space, The Nature of Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14276973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverWroughtThought/pseuds/OverWroughtThought
Summary: Inter-species relationships are complicated.  One of you communicates with these weird muscles called "cheeks" and "lips," the other by tasting emotions and skimming thoughts through perfectly normal facial tendrils.  Some might find that too vast a bridge to cross, but really, it's just another opportunity to learn.





	1. Cling

**Author's Note:**

> I keep trying to get out of the game, but Enabler in Chief MaxwellsDeamon [keeps making things that drag me back in.](https://twitter.com/MaxwellsDeamon/status/979843568780025856)

Prophecy was an exhausting burden. Or so Gol thought until the mantle lifted. Only when unmoored did they recognize it as an anchor.

Gol and K'thriss lay curled about each other on a thick pile of soft rugs, a rumpled blanket more or less covering tangled limbs. Over time they'd added various accoutrements to their shared dream space, although not many, both used to fairly ascetic lives. The illithid's tentacles wandered as they willed, each driven by its own linked mind, occasionally sending back partial thoughts and sensations independent of the others. They were one entity and many, a microcosm of the connection individual mind flayers shared with their elder brain.

A connection Gol would never feel again.

One more sacrifice for the cause.

Dimly the carver sensed their tendrils flex and tighten about the blue skin of their Beloved. They clung to the drow as a bat might clutch the ceiling of a cave. There was a strange sense of…security? Safety? Comfort? Gol did not have a word to fully encompass the sensation. It was too…

_Vulnerable._

A foreign and disturbing concept.

Gol remembered weeping at the feet of their god. They'd given away everything, all for naught. Their reward would never come.

Gol's tentacles flexed, tightened, and released. Flexed, tightened, and released.

"Gol?"

They'd accepted isolation, endless agony though it was, as a necessary price. Supped on centuries of _elen'cahl_ and endured countless petty rebellions and meaningless contests for dominance. All with a singular purpose. They had no choice. It was destiny.

Until it wasn't. Gol never was _The One._ It was K'thriss. It had _always_ been K'thriss.

At first Gol celebrated their freedom, not comprehending what they lost. Too enthralled by this strange warlock. The instant they met, something inside the carver's heart tipped and knew K'thriss to be an equal. Equal, and more.

_Seeker. Brother. Friend. Beloved._

It should have been a warning, when Gol felt the link between them, newly formed, abruptly snap.

Flex, tighten, release. Flex, tighten, release.

Prophecy would betray them.

 ** _GOL_** _,_ K'thriss spoke in his mind.

They flinched. Awakened Mind was such a blunt instrument of communication. Clumsy arcane weavings could never match the pristine subtly of fluid psychic connections.

 _Yes?_ the carver replied, confused as to why K'thriss did not just speak aloud.

**_SORRY TO BOTHER YOU. JUST CURIOUS. IF MAYBE THERE'S A REASON --_ **

Flex, tighten, release. Gol heard a popping sound, like spine vertebrae snapping into place.

**_I CAN'T BREATHE._ **

The illithid blinked, extending awareness down their many limbs. Each tentacle thrummed with tension, wrapped far too tight around far too much fragile flesh and bone. Mortified, they felt their embarrassment wash back along the arcane spell and quickly severed the link.

Commands went out to each tendril, bringing them back under conscious control, withdrawing them quickly. They left raw marks on the warlock's skin in their wake. K'thriss compulsively gulped a breath of air, hand curling around his ribs. Then he hissed, and Gol saw muscles spasm in the drow's legs and arms. Gol brusquely began massaging life back into flesh that was even colder than usual, furious.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Gol snapped. They held up the drow's foot in their hands, rubbing the skin fiercely. "Your toes are…well, they're still blue, but they're _the wrong shade of blue._ "

K'thriss only pulled the appendage from Gol's rough grasp and wiggling the aforementioned toes. "Everything still works. See? It's fine."

Gol made a gurgling noise saved for moments of particular vexation. _Yes, yes, the body is a shell, Beloved. So you've told me. It still contains someone I cannot bear to lose. Not again,_ they thought, but said nothing. Only crossed their arms and glowered. Then looked away, gut churning with unfamiliar guilt and misplaced fury.

"I apologize," the illithid said.

K'thriss waved a dismissive hand, as if his well-being did not merit any concern. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

 _Too many things,_ Gol thought. Such an answer would be too vague. Invite too many questions. The carver stewed, trying to find a suitable response.

"You died," the illithid said at last.

"Yyyeesss?" K'thriss confirmed, confused. They'd spoken at length on the subject, but there was one thing the warlock didn't know.

"I felt it," Gol said, "when you went."

K'thriss sat up and gave the illithid his full attention. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?" he asked, returning Gol's question.

For a long moment, they did not know what to tell him. Rapturous joy was not something the carver encountered much in the Underdark. Nor giddy exhilaration. Nor reverent awe. K'thriss displayed all three when speaking of his death.

Their tentacles bunched in a shrug. "I knew how important it was to you. Why mar that with…" Gol trailed off, tendrils making vague motions.

"What?" K'thriss asked.

 "…I did not grieve with grace." Gol leaned forward, rubbing their eyes. "Let us say that Azoth's attempted rebellion was not entirely without cause."

Surprise resonated off the drow, strong enough for Gol to taste on the air without physical contact.

"The idea of someone mourning me is…strange," K'thriss said at last. "Celebrate my passing, maybe, but not…"

"I knew you feared Guallidurth," the illithid spoke in a distant voice. "I knew, but believed those fears unfounded. I passed on the mantle of prophecy. Thus, you could not die. It seemed a simple equation."

K'thriss shifted to sit a little closer to Gol and set his off hand, palm up, on their knee. The Qualith mark glowed dimly through skin and muscle.   Gol watched one of their tendrils extend, caressing the warlock's cool fingers and winding about his palm.

"For more than a century, my path was certain. All sacrifices worth the future reward," Gol's voice darkened. "I should have known, when you died, how wrong I'd been."

"I _did_ come back," K'thriss said.

"Yes," Gol said, "and I sang praises to my god when you returned. Fool that I was."

The tentacle flexed, tightening about the warlock's hand. K'thriss squeezed back and it released.

"That Which Endures is a god of dissolution," K'thriss said. "Shouldn't that power extend to expectations?"

Gol shot him an acidic glare, but tasted no malice in the contact between them, no ill intent. Only curiosity. The question was theoretical. Abstract. Not mockery or dismissal. The sting faded, though the idea rankled, that a follower of _The Ur_ would consider such things when Gol had not. They chewed on the idea and said nothing.

When the flavor of unease tinged the connection, Gol remembered that while their silence would speak volumes to a fellow mind flayer, it meant little to the drow. Equal, but not equivalent. Still so easy to forget.

"Gol…just what were you planning to do with that knife?" K'thriss asked.

Memory brought the weight of the ritual blade to Gol's mind. They felt the texture of the wrapping about the hilt, saw the curved edge and the well-used blood channels. Heard the protective snarl of the surface carver, wearing the form of a strange furred beast from the world above. Saw the hideous change come over the goblin army, bodies twisting into false new shapes, altered rather than consumed. Loss, rage, and murderous intent writhed within their heart. Into their mind, K'thriss spoke.

**_REJOICE._ **

But there was no joy here. 

"I do not know," they said at last. "I can't remember."

Had their positions been reversed, Gol would challenge such an obvious lie. Yet K'thriss left it unremarked.

"I never told you about the Tetrathanotica I left," the warlock said instead, redirecting the conversation. Gol felt absurdly grateful, finally seeing the merits of obfuscation. Perhaps not all secrets deserved resentment.

"I assumed there wasn't one," the illithid said. "You never brought it up."

A slight pause. Through the tentacle wrapped around the warlock's palm rippled a wave of embarrassment, an instant before the drow's cheeks shifted color to a gentle lavender. The illithid stored the physiological indicator in their memory, one more foreign form of expression they needed to learn.

"It was Unity," K'thriss said.

Gol stared, watching the purple color deepen and spread.

"…Beloved," Gol said finally, choosing their words with care, "I don't want you to take this the wrong way…"

"I'm sure I won't," K'thriss assured them, even while the taste of his apprehension grew thick in the space between them.

"I know dying was very special for you."

"I understand."

"But…" Gol's tentacles squirmed, searching for words. "I…expected it to be something…"

"New?" K'thriss supplied, voice edged with bitterness.

Gol felt an echo of the warlock's frustration then. Disappointment. A tenuous thread of fear, although of what, Gol could not guess. On impulse, they supplanted the tendril around K'thriss' palm with a hand, awkwardly meshing three clawed fingers with the drow's blunt four. K'thriss didn't seem to mind how badly they fit.

"Did you mean it as a gesture?" Gol asked, more hesitantly than they liked. There was that disturbing feeling again. _Vulnerable._

A slight intake of breath and furrowed brow met the question, flair of curiosity replacing frustration. K'thriss ran his free hand down his face hair -- beard, the word was?

"I don't know," he answered. "I hadn't given it much thought, beyond what a waste it was."

"Would you mind…" Gol took a deep breath, but was unable to finish the question. _If I chose to believe the mark for me?_ They pulled their hand away, hiding it within their many protective layers of cloth, tentacles withdrawn tight and close. K'thriss didn't seem to notice, absorbed in thought.

_Am I so lost that I'll place myself at the center of any portent? I do not belong there. I never was The One._

"The interpretation is valid," K'thriss said, reclaiming the carver's attention. "Now that I consider it, there's several possible theories." His voice warmed with enthusiasm, skin stretching to show square teeth. Gol studied the expression intently. This smile -- they had no such word in illithid culture -- was not a trustworthy indicator of emotion. Supposedly it demonstrated joy, but K'thriss employed it for many purposes. The mind flayer extended their tendrils again, ruffling the beard, picking up the true tenor of the moment.

"This uncertainty…pleases you?" the illithid asked.

"If it's something I already know, what's the point?" K'thriss replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

A gurgling huff of surprise left their throat. Gol shook their head, tentacles swaying back and forth. "It seems we are both Seekers of Truth, but not for the same reasons," they said.

"Oh?" K'thriss leaned forward, momentarily distracted from further theorizing.

"You desire knowledge to find further questions," Gol said, and K'thriss confirmed with a nod, "but I pursued knowledge to confirm answers I thought I already knew."

The warlock's ruined brow raised, scarred tissue showing slightly beneath the blindfold. "So when That Which Endures emerged different than expected…"

"Everything I believed," Gol's tentacles snapped together in disgust and frustration, "proven wrong in an instant. I built centuries of my life on false assumptions. What does that leave me now?"

"Opportunities," K'thriss said, with the same enthusiasm, almost yearning, as before. Again, that baffling smile. _Rejoice_ the warlock told him, and only now did Gol begin to understand why.

 _I must learn from this man,_ the carver thought, not for the first time.

"I will try to see things your way," Gol said. They still felt adrift. Lost. Purposeless. However, in that moment, hope kindled within them.

Perhaps they did not need prophecy as an anchor after all.


	2. Took the Time to Learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [MaxwellsDeamon,](https://twitter.com/MaxwellsDeamon) [ThatJoser](https://twitter.com/ThatJoser), and I started theorizing about the drow sign language one day. Fiction spawned from there.
> 
> TW for harassment/assault in a toxic drow matriarchy context. Tried to keep it mild, but that may vary depending on your own personal sensitivity.

Communication posed a challenge, Gol concluded, because K'thriss expressed himself using too many different languages at the same time.

First, the language of spoken words. This method Gol understood for the most part, speaking and reading as widely as they had eaten. They devoured the minds of several notable scholars back when they still had access to such choice meals. Common, undercommon (high and low), drow, dwarvish, goblin, and orc, of course, along with abyssal, infernal, and deep speech. A smattering of gnomish, draconic, and primordial even. The greatest difficulty came from shaping the various tongues, as many relied on lips which the illithid did not have. Of course, where anatomy failed, spells or a subtle psychic projection generated the requisite noises.

Second, the language of lips and cheeks. Gol was fairly well versed in scowl. Goblins deployed it frequently and the carver learned to interpret the nuances. Smile, however, proved far more complex. Especially with this drow's particular range of smiles. Some meant K'thriss felt truly happy. Others indicated nervousness. Still more stood in for fury or fear. Some simply conveyed he wished to be friendly, polite, or to lie. To further complicate this baffling syntax, the coloration of cheeks and angle of the head also contributed meaning.

Unfortunately in K'thriss' case, his eyes were no longer available to contextualize expressions. A pity, since it seemed one of the few facial features their kinds shared. At least the movement of flesh over the brow had some elements in common. For the rest, Gol relied on the crutch of tendril tasting, skimming the air and the drow's skin for surface emotional cues.

These two languages together were difficult enough to parse, particularly in a man that enjoyed partial truths as much as K'thriss. However, recently Gol noticed a third in use.

The language of hands.

"What does that mean?" they asked, pointing at K'thriss' clasped fingers.

"Hmm?" K'thriss paused mid-sentence, head tilted slightly. The Ligotti facsimile about his shoulders reoriented, trying to determine what Gol indicated.

"Your hands," Gol clarified, "I've seen you do that before. A motion…" The carver tried to mimic the gesture, although it was slightly incomplete with three fingers instead of four. They clasped their hands together, end finger of one caught between the index and middle finger of the other, and gave it a slight roll of the wrist.

"You noticed," K'thriss said, with a duck of his head and a new unfathomable expression, only a twitch at the corners of the lips. Gol squinted. It indicated the warlock felt…pleased? Shy? They extended tendrils, seeking further information. Bittersweet? They couldn't be sure without getting closer. 

"So it _does_ have a meaning?" Gol pressed.

"Oh yes," K'thriss said, features shifting to a more familiar arrangement, lips spread wider to expose teeth. Gol thought of it as the _I know a secret and I'm going to make you work for it_ smile. The illithid had yet to decide if it infuriated them, or if they adored it. Perhaps both. Gol sighed, one part exasperation, one part amusement, and put their hands on their hips.

"What do I need to do?" they asked.

The teeth disappeared, but the corners of the lips continued to curl, brow lowering slightly. _Mischief_ that one meant. K'thriss released his clasped hands, fingers steepled and splayed, wrists rolling forward until the thumbs pointed upwards, all motion exaggerated. Performative, even.

"The dance of hands is never taught to outsiders," K'thriss said, and drew his fingers apart, bringing them even with his shoulders, knuckles outward. "Every family has their own. Some take decades to learn." He moved his dominant hand in a rolling gesture, fingers curling as the wrist twisted and uncurling again fluidly as the palm turned upward. "Demonstrating the full nuances is considered a rite of passage in some houses."

"Ah. So you cannot teach me?" Gol asked.

K'thriss rolled his fingers together again, closing into a loose fist. "Such knowledge is forbidden," he said, enigmatic. The warlock's lips parted, baring teeth once more. This looked less like an expression of joy and more like a challenge.

"That never stopped either of us," the carver replied, skin crinkling about their eyes as their tendrils danced.

The index and middle fingers of the warlock's hand straightened out from the fist, pressed tightly against each other. The drow swept them in a circular motion from sternum to lips, flowing into a graceful bow.

Ligotti spiraled down the warlock's arm, transforming into a staff. K'thriss touched the end to the floor and light sparked at the contact. He drew it upward, fashioning the rough shape of a doorway. Once carved in the air it became solid, like a pane of glass. K'thriss pressed his hand against the surface, head bowed.

After numerous experiments, they found it easier to build a location beyond a threshold than to spawn it piece by piece nearby. Something about the doorway let the details take care of themselves. Gol stood quietly, letting the warlock work. Even with the aid of such a device, crafting required considerable concentration. At last K'thriss leaned forward, touching forehead to fingers. The doorway rippled from the point of contact, taking on an iridescent sheen. K'thriss reached back, silently took Gol's hand, and pulled them through.

They stepped into a hallway lined with shut doors. Gol looked around, noting the construction and style. Distinctly drow. This was not a surface location then.

There was a dull click as a door down the hall closed. Gol saw the back of a drow man, dressed in a dull blue. His skin was a soft gray and as he turned Gol noted a faint scar over the left side of his lips. In profile, he bore a striking resemblance to K'thriss.

His eyes passed over Gol as if they were not there, but when he saw the warlock he smiled in what the mind flayer recognized as a sign of genuine affection. K'thriss returned the expression, then reached up with his off hand to tug at the lower part of his ear -- Gol searched their memory for the specific word -- Ah, the earlobe. The man repeated the gesture and approached, pausing to kneel. K'thriss dropped to one knee as the man did, ducking his head low, roughly the height a small child might stand. The man reached out and ruffled the warlock's hair. Then he glanced back and forth down the hall, pulling out a small pouch and pushing it into K'thriss' hands.

"But --" the warlock began, stopping as the man raised two fingers to his lips and winked. K'thriss brought his open hand to his chest, laying the palm flat against his collarbone briefly before turning it upward. One side of the man's mouth quirked, a tiny puff of exhaled breath through the nose seeming to indicate some sort of mirth, if Gol read the warmth in his eyes correctly. He briefly gripped the warlock's ear, clapped him on the shoulder, and stood to walk down the hall. K'thriss rose and followed, the pouch disappearing into a pocket. Gol stepped close behind.

They descended a wide staircase into a broad foyer, house banners glittering with gemstones above them. Gol noted the motif, looking at K'thriss sharply.

"Your former home?" the illithid asked. K'thriss nodded. Gol's tendrils knotted and squirmed with concern. "If you find this painful…"

K'thriss spread his fingers flat, parallel to the floor, hand swaying back and forth in the air as though sweeping away dust. "This is where I learned," he said simply.

As they reached the bottom step, two large doors to the left opened and swiftly shut again. A drow girl, just on the cusp of adolescence, walked toward them with swift strides. She met the eyes of the man, K'thriss' father, Gol surmised, and her lips flattened. Her right hand came up next to her face in a quick, sharp gesture, small and pointer fingers extended toward the ceiling. Then she flicked her wrist in their direction three times.

The man nodded, moving hands behind his back. One clasped the wrist of the other, the free hand twitching four fingers in a small wave. K'thriss grabbed Gol by the shoulder and jerked his head toward an archway under the stair, leading to a shadowed corridor. As they disappeared through it, they heard the large door slam open again.

"Matron Mother Ysildrith," the man said behind them, and K'thriss broke into a controlled run, taking care to make as little noise as possible. Gol heard a female voice reply, irate, before distance obscured the conversation.

They sped through a warren of back rooms, each progressively less ornate. Servant quarters, Gol guessed, before they emerged through a cramped, modest exit into an alley piled with refuse. K'thriss picked his way through it, scrambling up a mound of trash to hop over a stone wall. Gol dropped down behind, keeping close.

Without a word, K'thriss set out at an easy jog, occasionally pausing to look up at the massive stalactites looming above, barely illuminated by the glow of city lights. He sighted along his arm, Ligotti's serpentine body angling to provide the appropriate frame of reference. The roads, such as they were, descended from the grand houses carved out of stone columns and into a shallow valley worn eons past by a branch of the nearby river. Buildings here were constructed from stone blocks, a jumble of architectural whims spanning centuries. Streets became more populated, but K'thriss kept to the edges and alleys wherever possible, head bowed and gaze averted from all they passed.

Eventually they entered a massive square filled with tents of rough cloth over waist-high stone walls serving as both demarkation and countertops. Drow in simple cloth garments displaying various goods occupied each space. Gol saw stone carvings, woven cloth, jars of strange liquids, mounds of colored powders, rows of blades, and polished gems in metal settings. Some tents sported banners, perhaps of different patron houses. The clang of metal and sulfuric odor of smelting hinted at a blacksmith nearby. Grubs sizzled over coals, strange spices and spores wafting through the air. Gol tasted the scents, enjoying the novelty. People crowded the area, picking over produce and inspecting items. Gol recognized it as a marketplace, although this regimented grid hardly resembled the chaotic madness of a goblin bazaar.

"It's quiet," Gol commented. "I expected drow to talk more."

"Oh?" K'thriss said, _Mischief_ spread across his face once more. "I think they're saying plenty."

The illithid's brow gathered into a frown of flesh and they turned back to the shoppers, studying them. Mouths might not be moving, but the arms were in constant motion. Quick jabs, expansive bows, flickers of fingers.

"The gestures are bigger here," Gol said, noting how signals extended all the way out to the elbows. In some cases, the entire arm. Something about them felt familiar, from a mind Gol ate centuries ago, largely forgotten.

"Trade language," K'thriss said.

Gol approached one especially expressive pair. An older woman with a fierce scowl, jewelry glinting at her wrists, snapped fingers at a man in threadbare garments making frantic conciliatory gestures between bagging various mushrooms. Neither seemed to notice the mind flayer in their midst.

"The customers use their dominant hands," the illithid noted, "the shop-owners off hands."

"A sign of…well, respect is not the right word. Deference? No, that's not it either," K'thriss pressed his lips together, head tilted upward. "Necessity," he said at last.

Without elaborating, K'thriss picked his way around the increasingly irate woman and continued deeper into the market. The simple stalls gave way to more elaborate constructions. Tents taking up multiple plots, the cloth cleaner, brighter, and better appointed. Then stores with permanent stone walls and iron doors. K'thriss approached a building two stories tall, solid and squat in appearance, with iron bars over a window displaying stacks of books. A banner hung above the door bearing a tome, a blade, and an arcane circle. As the warlock ascended the steps, a stocky male guard barred his path, off hand raised, palm outward.

"Apologies young man, but our patron does not permit trade with the Rah'uuthli house," the guard said. He did not look K'thriss in the eyes when he spoke, his gaze closer to the ground.

Though still tempted to watch faces for cues, Gol forced their eyes to follow hands. K'thriss bowed, though not deeply, and as he did so his dominant hand came up to pat his shoulder twice in a gesture difficult to see from the street. The guard crossed his arms, off hand held against his body and dominant hand on top, turning slightly away. With one finger, the guard tapped his ribs three times, the motion almost completely hidden at any angle except from where they stood. K'thriss bowed again and mutely trotted down the street.

After half a block he ducked into an alley, paused briefly to make sure they weren't followed, and proceeded to circle around to the back of the building. There they found a small, nondescript door. K'thriss tapped on it three times, just loud enough to be heard. A slat in the door pulled back, eyes appearing at the small window. Again, K'thriss brought his hand to his shoulder and patted it twice. The slat closed once more, and with the scrape of locks, the door opened.

They entered a cramped back room, cleaning supplies collected in a corner. A carved stone counter jutted out between the back entrance and a single exit against the far wall. A neatly dressed male drow, older than most Gol had seen, shut the door behind them and redid the locks. K'thriss waited patiently for the elder to finish and totter behind the counter. The man interlaced his fingers, leaning over to look at a spot just above K'thriss' knees.

"How may I serve, young Rah'uuthli?" he asked.

"I'm looking for some light reading," K'thriss answered. As he spoke, he touched either elbow, dominant hand then rotating in a large half circle before swiping back in a quick cut through the air.

"I see. And I mean no disrespect, but," the old man reached up to his shoulder with his off hand, a mirror of the gesture K'thriss had shown at the door, and patted it once before turning an open palm in the warlock's direction, "we don't have many younger customers of means. You understand."

K'thriss reached into his pocket and pulled out the pouch from his father. It clinked softly as he opened it and sifted through the contents. When he looked up, his fingers flickered in a blur of motions meaningless to Gol, but the shop keeper followed them intently.

"I think we have something suitable in your budget, though I'll need the Mistress' key," the old man said. He held his off hand outward, palm down, and then rotated it to face the ceiling, bobbing in the air once. K'thriss nodded and the shop keeper turned away, passing through the inner door and into the store beyond.

"I thought trade was not permitted," Gol said.

"Just because one _must_ not does not mean one _will_ not," K'thriss replied.

"Partial truths," Gol grumbled. The corner of K'thriss' mouth twitched.

"Necessity," the warlock said. "Do illithid never mislead one another?"

Gol paced restlessly in the cramped room, inspecting the walls and counter. "Nobody looks you in the eye," the carver said. "Is that significant?"

K'thriss chuckled in his strange, breathy manner, although Gol didn't know if the drow found the question or the obvious evasion amusing. "I was shorter then," he said.

Gol's feet stilled. "This is a memory? Not a construction?"

Before K'thriss could answer the door opened and the old man returned carrying a small stack of modestly sized volumes. He navigated around the counter, stepping over a dustbin, and held them out to K'thriss at a level roughly even with the warlock's knees. The younger drow knelt down and took the books, fingers moving reverently over leather bound covers.

"We have more advanced books as well, but none of those are _light_ reading," the shop keeper said. "Look through and let me know if any interest you."

K'thriss sat on the stone floor with the books in his lap, head bowed over the vellum pages, his expression difficult for Gol to ascertain. The mind flayer knelt next to him, one tendril brushing his shoulder. _Melancholy joy_ they tasted, tinged heavily with wistful nostalgia. Over the warlock's shoulder they saw diagrams, ingredient lists, and simple explanations of arcane symbols. Introductory texts, largely theoretical in nature. K'thriss went through the stack with care, eventually selecting a small volume the size of a pocket journal. He held it up inquiringly and the shop keeper answered with another flurry of fingers that seemed to satisfy the warlock. He stood, giving back the unchosen volumes, hands lingering on each as though struggling to part with any of them. Once more the small pouch emerged from a hidden pocket, K'thriss pulling out coins one by one and setting them on the counter, nearly emptying the bag. 

The shop keeper pulled the stack of currency across the stone surface, pocketing it. His wrinkled hand rose to his collarbone before turning it upward, hand open. Gol recognized the gesture, K'thriss having done the same when he received the pouch of coin from his father. The warlock tilted his head in acknowledgement, secreting the book away in his cloak as the shop keeper undid the locks on the door. The old drow bowed as they left.

K'thriss hopped down the stairs, steps light as he oriented himself once more by the stalactites above and set off down another alleyway. Yet as he entered a particularly shadowed passage, he stopped abruptly, Gol bumping into him. Through the contact they picked up a flash of tangled feelings. Old pain.

"What's wrong?" Gol asked.

"I'm less fond of this part," K'thriss said, "but it's one of the few times I saw this piece of the dance. Maybe if I'd gone into the military…" He shook his head and resumed walking, steps determined.

Halfway through the alley, a tall figure stepped from the shadows. "What's a Blue Hand doing in Sul'velve territory?" she asked.

K'thriss bolted back the way he came, but two more figures appeared at the mouth of the passage, cutting off escape. As they closed in he turned to the first woman, bowing deeply, off hand pressed against his forehead with curled fingers. The warlock looked up as Gol hissed, drawing their dagger.

"Don't," the warlock said. Then his mouth twisted, as though trying to smile, but failing to fully manifest the expression. "It's really not that bad."

Given K'thriss' standards, this did not comfort Gol overmuch.

The first woman swept out her arm in a swift, stiff gesture. Gol recognized it from the drow soldier they'd consumed long ago, the knowledge providing scant warning before the two from the mouth of the alley grabbed K'thriss by his arms and pinned him against the wall. A flair of light stung Gol's eyes as a glowing orb appeared above them. Squinting, the mind flayer studied the assailants.

Younger than expected. Gol estimated them just shy of adulthood, by drow standards. The woman who first spoke was the eldest among them, but only just. She wore her white hair pulled back into a tight bun, exposing a long scar across her forehead and an ear clipped off at the end. Her skin matched the dull gray of her scale mail, shoulders covered by a cloak of similar color.   A symbol picked out in silver thread on a black sash across her chest matched the banner over the bookshop. A tome, a blade, and an arcane circle. The other two women wore dark leather armor, the shoulder of each bearing the same emblem. She looped her fingers in another gesture Gol recognized. _Search him,_ it meant.

The woman on the left used a free hand to part the folds of K'thriss' robe, although the motions hovered at the wrong height to go through his pockets. Nonetheless, after a moment she pulled out both book and pouch, tossing them to her leader. The scarred woman caught the objects deftly, coin smoothly disappearing into her pocket. The book she flipped through roughly, examining the maker's mark. "Looks like the rumors are true," she said. "Mistress Voiry's stooping to side business. Ungrateful." She threw the small volume on the ground, stomping on the spine, which gave way with a snap. K'thriss uttered a small, wordless sound of protest, and she smiled. 

"Pretty advanced reading for a boy," she commented, stepping closer. "Or did you just get it for the pictures?"

K'thriss looked down and did not answer. She seized his chin and forced his head upward.

Gol's vision whited out, a primal, possessive urge gripping their body. _Mine._ They reached out to shove the woman away.

Clawed hands passed though her and the carver stumbled.

"Show me your teeth," she said. The lips of K'thriss' face spread wide in a smile Gol knew well and hated. A mild, pleasant expression as numb as the feelings it suppressed.     

The woman tilted his head back and forth before finally pulling away. "A little young right now, but he could be pretty in a few years."

"Ugh, Vierja, really?" one of the younger ones spoke up. "You know their seed stains, right?"

Vierja grinned, a feral baring of teeth. "I never said I'd go courting, Rill. Haven't you ever been tempted to play in the mud?" She slapped K'thriss lightly across the face. "I'm sure even a Rah'uuthli boy could be taught the proper way to serve."

Gol's fingers curled into impotent fists, bloody visions filling their mind. Were this woman solid, the carver would bind her to an altar and peel her flesh from her bones over days of torment. They did not know if That Which Endures still accepted such sacrifices, but in this case, they would observe all the extended rites. Perhaps invent a few new ones.

The skin around Rill's nose flared and she frowned. "I'd rather hang his corpse on their front gate," she said.

Vierja shrugged. "Why not one, then the other?"

The third woman chuckled, shaking her head. "You're sick, cousin. Even a goblin would have higher standards."

"You only say that because you'd like to sleep with one," Vierja teased. "I've seen how you look at that hob slave of yours."

Her cousin punched Vierja gently on the shoulder. "You're disgusting," she laughed.

Vierja jerked her fingers in a quick loop and they released K'thriss. He fell to his knees, face downcast.

"Come on," said Vierja. "We need to remind that book keeper who her _real_ patrons are."

The trio began walking away, the summoned light bobbing overhead. K'thriss reached for the abandoned book. Just as his fingers touched the cover, a blade embedded itself in the leather and sent the volume tumbling. He jerked his hand back.

"Leave it, boy," Vierja called from the mouth of the alleyway, her hand outstretched from the throw. "And don't come back here again, or I won't wait until you're older to pay you a visit."

K'thriss stayed there, unmoving, long after their laughter and footsteps faded.

Gol waited, respecting his silence. At last the warlock stood, walking over to the much abused book. Pages had come loose, ripped and dirtied vellum spread across the ground. He stared at the remains, hands trembling. Then in a swift, furious motion, he knelt down, ripped the blade from the leather, and cast it away. The warlock gathered the pieces of the volume, holding it close against his chest. For a moment he glanced the way Vierja and her band had left, mouth set in a grim line. With a crisp, defiant turn on his heel, he set off towards Rah'uuthli territory. Gol followed, sorting through a jumble of vengeful thoughts, striving to keep up with K'thriss' swift pace.

It wasn't until they'd passed back through the market that Gol spoke. "It's not just this city that is quiet," the carver said. K'thriss did not respond, but his ears twitched as his jaw clenched. "Why didn't you say anything?" the illithid asked.

"No one wanted my words in Guallidurth," K'thriss said, footsteps slowing to a walk. "When you give yourself a voice, you become someone. Many find that threatening. Especially from a boy."

"But…I have seen you face confrontation," Gol said, remembering flopping around in the drow's arms during his misguided rescue, goblins cheering on their new illusory hobgoblin champion. "You are…one might say _loquacious."_

"Surface habit. Up there, everyone has questions," his voice became bitter and harsh. "'What do you want, drow? Why should I trust you?'" K'thriss shrugged. "If I said nothing, they assumed the worst. If I spoke…well, they thought me a fool, but that yielded better results. After all, how much harm can a fool do?" The skin about the corners of his mouth tightened, but it did not resemble any smile Gol recognized.

"Does talking bother you?" Gol asked.

K'thriss stopped, brow raised in surprise. "No," he said. "I enjoy it, actually." The warlock ducked his head. "Although…I don't have the balance quite right. Not yet. Always too much. Or maybe too little? It could be a tone? Or just the wrong…" he drifted off and Gol belatedly realized that sentence would never be finished. "Does talking bother you?" K'thriss asked instead.

Gol's tendrils squirmed. "I want…" they didn't know how to express what they'd lost. The ease of linked expression, unencumbered by sound or the search for a word. There were no _right_ words to Gol. All insufficient placeholders, equally meaningless shades of nuance. The carver knew language, but found it stifling.

They brought their fingers to their forehead, then reached out to touch K'thriss' brow. " _This,_ " they said, and tried to infuse the worthless syllable with all they felt. Their hand dropped limply. It was not enough.

"It's hard to speak and have no one hear," K'thriss said. He looked down and clasped his hands together, end finger of one caught between the index and middle finger of the other, rolling the wrists slightly. His head came back up and he drew his hands apart again, fingers wiggling theatrically like a performing magician. "I'm always saying things to them, but none of them notice. I don't know why I keep doing it. When I first came to the surface, it was my own private joke. Now…" He shook his head. "I think…I just miss it." He laughed, a short, abbreviated cough of a sound. "Stupid," he said.

Shoulders hunched, K'thriss turned away, holding out his arm. Ligotti coiled down to his hand, transforming once more into a staff. The warlock tapped the ground and the world around them rippled, slowly fading. Soon the walls of Guallidurth vanished and they stood in their sparsely appointed dream space. The drow sighed heavily.

"K'thriss?"

The warlock turned. Gol did not have the requisite parts. No flesh extruded from the side of their head. Yet the carver reached up to where they guessed an ear might hang and gripped fingers together as though they held a lobe between them, bobbing their off hand in a gentle tug at the air. K'thriss stood stock still, face a smooth, expressionless mask Gol could not interpret. They waited, increasingly nervous.

"Was that…was that in error?" the illithid asked.

K'thriss pressed his lips together, then parted them, but no sound came out. His mouth shut again. He held his hand against his collarbone, then turned it outward, palm facing upward.

"You're welcome," Gol said. "And it's true, Beloved."

K'thriss smiled. Gol knew exactly what he meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about the meanings of any of the gestures used in this story, [I've made a glossary with notes, visuals, and variant signs.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hv2uccTj_Y9A2pV_4gsNW85e0EHcKfPptXh0MQQ8TUM/edit?usp=sharing)


	3. Changed

"I never thought That Which Endures a cruel god," Gol confided to K'thriss. "But I…" they paused, glancing about the empty dream space, "I begin to doubt."

"Why?" the drow asked.

"These _things_ That Which Endures created are…there is no word.  The drow would say _valyrine,_ but that is not right," Gol said, tendrils grasping, resenting language limitations.

"Surface common equates _valyrine_ to 'kindness,' but I find that a gross translation error," K'thriss said.

"Why do they pretend to care?" Gol's tendrils twitched. "Unless it’s to cut deeper with future betrayal.  To create…" Another fruitless search for words, " _khaless."_

"Misplaced trust," K'thriss supplied.

"It is cruel," Gol said.

"You’re kind to me," the drow pointed out.   

Gol felt the flesh on their brow furrow.  "That’s different," the carver replied. "You are an equal."

The muscles around K'thriss' mouth and brow contracted, lips pursing slightly as the drow tilted his head.  "How many people do you consider equals?" the warlock asked.

"At present?" Gol stared at him intently.  "One." Even as they said it, Gol knew it to be a lie.  

They were not equals.

Prophecy chose K'thriss.

Never Gol.

_Khaless._

 

* * *

 

On the fifteenth day, Gol had only been hungry.

 _Rejoice! The reward is in front of you._ The drow's laughter lingered in Gol's memory. _Imagine what could be written of this. What could be studied of it. It's never been seen before!_

Gol clung to the sentiment, trailing their transformed army.  These creatures showed no fear of Gol, tracking the carver's movements with only mild interest.  Always clustered in groups, rarely speaking. Sometimes a clique would laugh in unison when the illithid drew near, hiding smiles behind graceful fingers and exchanging glances of unknown significance.  The carver, out of newly formed habit, began watching their gestures. No dance of hands. Unless touch formed the basis of their dialect. There was a great deal of touching. Hands on shoulders, backs, clasped in greeting, fingers brushed against a forehead or cheek in passing.  

The day K'thriss freed That Which Endures, one of these green drow grasped Gol by the arm. The touch too hot, even through layers of protective cloth.  A long time since Gol felt something so warm. The sensation left them feeling cold and insignificant. That Which Endures transformed these lesser beings of base nourishment, but left Gol, most faithful of followers, untouched.  Nearly unremarked.

Perhaps this was a riddle?  A test to prove they were worthy.  

The need for nourishment grew day by day.  So did the search for an answer.

 

* * *

 

_I am starving._

Ridiculous.  Surrounded by sentient beings, yet the illithid went hungry.

_I may be dead soon._

The wrong words, but Gol should say them anyway.

_My end will be one of weakness._

"Is something wrong?" the warlock's question rattled Gol from their silent brooding.

"Why do you ask?" the illithid evaded.

"Oh…" K'thriss shrugged, bringing his hand up to his face and wriggling his fingers in front of his mouth.  Gol blinked with surprise. Despite the limited flexibility of the drow's joints, he still managed to mimic tendril motions with relative accuracy.  _Distress,_ the movement broadcast. _Distress, distress, distress._

Of course K'thriss learned to read such signals. _Of course._ Gol sighed, trying to muster a lie, but the words would not come.

"I am…well enough," they said at last, but held clawed hands flat, fingers up and palms facing the warlock, bringing them together until the thumbs touched and formed a barrier between them.  _I'm holding back, Beloved. Do not press me._ K'thriss was not the only one learning.

_Partial truths._

 

* * *

 

On the thirtieth day, hunger grew to desperation.

The plan lacked subtly, but over decades of frustration with their goblin army, Gol knew simple schemes were sufficient for simple creatures.  

"I will speak with you," Gol told a green drow, chosen at random for his proximity.  His group turned toward the illithid as one, assessing. Gol met the force of this collective gaze with a glower, at once unnerved and envious of such synchrony.  "Alone," the carver added.

The creature nearest the illithid silently met eyes with each member of the circle.  The last reached out and intertwined fingers, lingering for a moment. Then both nodded and broke the connection.  Gol walked away and their chosen victim followed.

The mind flayer entered a warren of nearby tunnels.  With every step Gol's breath quickened, fluids pulsing through membranes shivering with need.  Their skin moistened, stinging where flesh deprived of necessary nutrients had dried and cracked.  Gol hid quaking hands in layered sleeves and increased the pace.

The meal -- no, the sacrifice -- would take place far from their army.  Such precautions were unnecessary with goblins, who made no pretense of caring for each other, but Gol did not know how far this _kindness_ of the green drow extended.  Goblins felt relief when one of their number was chosen, because it meant the rest of them were spared.  And fear. Always fear, that next time they might not be so lucky.

The muscles in Gol's abdomen cramped at the thought.  Even _elen'cahl_ appealed now.  

How would the terror of a green drow taste?  Gol imagined this _valyrine_ beast experiencing betrayal.  Rage. Grief. Oh, to sup on such delicacies once more!  Saliva that could melt bone dripped from Gol's mouth and ran down their tendrils in rivulets.     

One hand caressed the hilt of their sacrificial blade, claws catching on stained leather.  This act would not be a violation of their god's work. No, merely part of the study. Gol would earn their reward from That Which Endures.        

The intended site still remained a great distance away, but Gol could wait no longer.  Now. They needed to eat _now._

Gol whirled, releasing a blast of psychic energy.  The illithid expected at least a flicker of surprise, but no expression crossed the green drow's face as his body fell limp, crumpling to the ground.  Dazed eyes met the carver's as the mind flayer bent over their feast, tentacles lapping over soft cheeks, ravenous. The beast's hot skin scalded Gol's tendrils, but they took satisfaction in watching their caustic saliva score marks across sculpted features.  At last the illithid sensed something from the otherwise quiet mind: pain.

The prudent choice would be to feed while the creature remained stunned.  Disorientation might dull flavor, but Gol needed sustenance, not pleasure.

Chemical burns carved whirling tattoos across fragile skin and the beast flinched.  Gol wanted more. Always more. A little pain and confusion provided scant satisfaction.  No, this meal needed to suffer. To release the full range of sweetness a mind could offer.  K'thriss bid Gol study the creations of That Which Endures. Their examination must be thorough.  

This animal would understand by the end.  The universe's indifference left no room for kindness.  Not between predator and prey.

A few quick slices of the sacrificial blade through the creature's clothing cut strips suitable to bind hands and feet. Gol debated a gag, but decided against it.  The risk of detection was greater, but…well, as the saying goes, you eat first with your ears.

Would the beast scream?  Beg? Break the veneer of kindness and spit epithets and threats?  An insatiable wave of longing left Gol dizzy. The creature's limbs twitched, slowly regaining control.  Gol stepped away, fingers trailing the wicked edge of their blade. Their trussed meal sat up, pushing against the wall of the tunnel for leverage.  Even with the return of his faculties, the animal showed no emotion. He met the carver's eyes.

A whisper of sensation brushed against the illithid's mind.  Like the glow of warmth from a fire. It seeped inward, so subtle Gol nearly mistook it at first.  Then the feeling flickered, kindled into something with meaning. Something like…

Gol couldn't remember how they ended up with the beast's head in their clawed hands, slamming it against the wall, palm burning from the creature's heat.  Tasting the scent of blood in the air with their tendrils, seeing a dark splatter on the stone.

" _No,"_ Gol snarled.  "Use words. I know you can."

The creature moaned in pain and the intrusion in Gol's mind vanished.  The illithid released their hold on his scalp.

"I think it obvious, but I shall be clear.  I intend to torture you," Gol said. Their tendrils danced and they added, "Then I will eat you."

"I know," the meal replied, voice soft.  There was no despair in his voice. No anger.  "I knew the moment you spoke to me. We all did."

"An obvious lie," Gol snapped.  "Am I to believe you're _that_ stupid?  Little more than a goblin after all?"

"I _am_ a goblin," said the food.  "But I am also changed." The creature met Gol's eyes, unwavering.  "I hope to change you too."

A scathing hiss burst from Gol's open maw.  "If That Which Endures wished to alter me further, it would have done so."

A sad shake of the head, formerly flawless skin pocked with spreading blisters.  "You are of the time before, Carver Gol. We are the future."

Gol struck the beast across the face, claws leaving three ragged cuts in their wake before seizing the meal's ear, intent on tearing it from his head.  Then his tongue. His eyes and fingers. Let the animal condescend while the carver ripped him apart.

A memory intruded.  K'thriss and his father, kneeling on the floor, exchanging private smiles of affection.  The man gripped the ear of his son.

Gol released their prey.  

They'd been going about this all wrong, walking among the chattel.  These things grew familiar. Thought themselves better than food. Equals.

More than that.  As superior. Enlightened.

The future.

This was the answer.  The riddle at last solved.  

The gathered force was not a feast for That Which Endures, but for Gol.  This first meal would return the illithid's strength. Then piece by piece the carver would devour the army until the power of their god was unified within Gol alone.

"Change me?  Yes, you shall.  You, and the rest of your kind," the mind flayer said, pressing tentacle tips into the beast's flesh as they drew his skull to their mouth.

Gol expected to taste fear.  Pain, at the very least.

Instead, pity flooded their senses.  Overwhelming, cloying, nauseating pity.  

Gol stumbled away, heaving.  They could not get the taste of it out.  Precious fluid spattered from their mouth, abdominal muscles convulsing.  This was worse than _elen'cahl._  These beasts were actual poison.  The illithid could not take such a mind in, not without self-loathing consuming their sanity.  

Wrong.  Wrong, wrong, _wrong._

There were no answers here.  K'thriss would find joy in that, but not Gol.  Was their life a delusion? False prophecies, false promises, false trust?  The blame could not be placed on That Which Endures. Their indifferent god never pretended to care.  Gol fabricated the lies. Even now they wove comforting stories to place themself at the center of events.  What if there was no reward? No purpose. No riddle. Only a fool ascribing meaning to happenstance.

"There has to be more than this," Gol moaned, pounding a fist against the wall.  "I was chosen. I was _changed._  There must be a reason!"    

"Perhaps you've served your role already, Carver," the beast said, voice even.  Blood trickled down his scarred face from where the tendrils penetrated his scalp, but he lived.  Calm eyes regarded the illithid, aloof. "My people are the result of your actions." He took on a softer tone, toxic pity lacing his voice with false sweetness, "Let us help you."

Gol laughed.  A choking, wheezing, wet cough echoing in the tunnel.  "How generous of you. How _kind,"_ the illithid sneered.  "Enjoy your fantasy while it lasts _._ "  A sweep of vertigo tilted Gol's vision.  "I told myself similar stories. I must find _true_ answers."  

With slow and unsteady steps, they continued deeper into the catacombs, leaving everything they'd built behind them.

 

* * *

 

"I have to go back," Gol said.

K'thriss twitched, though he covered it well.  "Home?" the drow asked.

Gol shook his head and the warlock's shoulders relaxed slightly.  

"The black altar," Gol told him.  "From the start, I built everything on false assumptions.  I need to see it clearly."

K'thriss nodded.  Of course the warlock understood.  Yet Gol sensed something amiss. Tension never fully left the drow's shoulders.  K'thriss held out an arm, tentative, then grasped the illithid's shoulder. He ran his hand down Gol's limb, trapping the carver's fingers, thumb running over flaking knuckles.  Unease flowed through the skin contact and Gol curbed the desire to drink in more. The sensation bordered on pain, to be so close to food they could not eat. Gol pulled shriveled tendrils inward.  They ached with hunger, flesh sore and cracked.

"Your skin is dry," K'thriss noted.  

"It is of no concern," Gol replied, gruff.

"I read once that's a sign of starva-"

Gol yanked their hand free.  "Oh please, _drow_ , tell me what your books say of my people," they snapped.  "I'm sure you know far better than I."

The warlock withdrew, hunching inward, wringing his hands with a motion more habitual than intentional, but Gol read the sign all the same.  _Apologies. Contrition. Abasement._  

"I'm --" K'thriss began, but Gol cut him off.

"Don't," the illithid said with a sigh.  Their chest constricted and Gol surrendered.  It was time. "You're right. I’m starving. Dying, unless I can find something on the way to the altar.  I meant to tell you earlier. I didn't want…"

"To worry me?" K'thriss supplied.

"No.  For you to…see me," Gol corrected, humiliation prickling their gut like needles, " _weak._ "

The drow moved closer, just within reach, then nearer still.  Gol resisted the temptation to touch, but their tendrils moved according to their own desires, twining around the cooler flesh of K'thriss' body.  Soon after, Gol relented, leaning their head against the warlock's shoulder.

"I am a fool," Gol said.

"There are worse things," K'thriss replied.

 

* * *

 

On the forty-ninth day, Gol stumbled upon some good fortune.

A drow scouting party of five soldiers traversed a canyon valley not more than a hundred feet below where the illithid crouched.  At first sighting, Gol mistook them for another hallucination. It wasn't until the leader used a hand sign the mind flayer didn't recognize that Gol knew the drow were real.  Had the scouts been figments of their starving mind, only known pieces of the dance of hands would be used, so Gol would understand it. A reasonable deduction.

It…it _was_ reasonable, wasn't it?

They blinked, shaking their head.  The drow. Hallucinatory Terrain could obscure a cliff, but Gol worried if their prey fell, the party would die before the illithid could feed.  A chance like this might not come again. Gol focused on the last woman in line. With an extension of will, the carver interjected a suggestion. Her mind resisted the outside influence, refusing to let the idea take root.  Fingers curled and tendrils cramped as Gol poured more psychic energy into the task, subverting barriers, binding thoughts. Imperative that the target believed the idea her own.

The steps of the drow slowed.  Stopped. She glanced at the backs of her fellow scouts and quietly turned away, heading in the opposite direction.  Relieved, Gol leaned back against the cold stone, gasping. Intolerable, this weakness. Little better than a tadpole.   

On their second try, they pushed to standing.  Fortunately they already knew the terrain and where their prey would go.  They reached their chosen ambush site and crouched low behind a jagged boulder.  Within moments, soft footfalls approached. The scout passed Gol's hiding place, attention focused far ahead.  Gol gathered a psychic blast, aimed it at her back, and released the stunning bolt.

A lapse in time.  Their tendrils twitched against cool stone.  Limbs spread at odd angles around them. A ringing sound.  Gol sat up, vision sliding as they did so. The ground. They were on the ground.  How did…?

A few feet away, the drow woman groaned, stirring from where she'd collapsed.  In moments she'd recover. Gol scrabbled on all fours, flinging their weight on top of the stunned scout, tendrils seizing her skull.  Food, food, _food_!  

Tentacles swarmed around her head, pulling her towards clicking chitinous beak wet with drool.  Eagerly they pressed their open mouth against her softening skull. Awareness returning, the woman's fear and fury flooded Gol's body. Their skin rippled in response, invigorated by the struggle of prey.  Gol's tendrils wrapped around her jaw and throat, stifling a cry for help.

The tension in their tentacles abruptly increased, stretching as their meal pulled away with a sudden jerk.  A ragged shriek of frustration tore from Gol's throat as they clutched at the kicking, squirming woman.

The weakened tendrils could not sustain their grip.  Three released, the fourth snagged on a buckle and snapped off at the tip, a gout of fluid spraying the dusty earth as Gol reeled it back with a snarl of pain.  The other tentacles curled protectively around their wounded fellow, drawing inward, stopping the flow. Gol lunged after the receding boots of the drow scout, nearly insensible with hunger, but the woman was dragged farther out of reach.  Sprawled on the ground, the illithid gathered shaking limbs for another attempt.

"Enough, Carver Gol," said a familiar voice.  

Gol's eyes refused to focus, seeing only a blur of green and gray.  They struggled to breathe. Chest heaving, the mind flayer stared at the shapes until they resolved into the forms of the drow woman and her rescuer.  The green skinned creature, face still scarred, released her shoulders. He'd pulled her away, damn him. Gol readied another psychic blast, but their vision failed completely with the effort, arm collapsing beneath them.  They lay in the dirt, heart pounding, energy spent. Spots of color danced in their eyes, the ground beneath them damp with the fluid of their wounded tendril. _Damn him_.

"What _are_ you?" the woman asked.

"A friend," the creature replied, guileless.

"Huh," she replied. Boots set in the ground.  Cloth rustled as she stood. Then the ring of steel being drawn.  "Help me kill this monster and we'll see."

A weak burst of adrenaline shoved Gol's quivering body to a sitting position against the rough rock, sacrificial knife in hand with practiced speed.  The drow woman paused, her own dagger poised, eyes judging the distance for a throw before the creature stepped between her and the illithid.

"There's no need for that," the beast said.  The mind flayer and the drow scoffed at the same time, then glared at one another.

"Every moment it still breathes, we're in danger," the scout spat.  

"She's right," Gol said.  "Of course, if she kills me, you'll be next."

The creature sighed, turning to Gol with a disappointed look.  "Why won't you let me help you?" he chastised.

The drow's next action was entirely predictable, yet the beast seemed genuinely surprised when the dagger bit into the flesh of his back.  She ripped the blade out and shoved the injured man away, kicking his feet out from under him. Her arm raised for a second strike.

A flick of Gol's wrist embedded the sacrificial knife in her throat before she got the chance.  She staggered, blood gurgling and bubbling in her mouth, and toppled to the ground. Gol dragged their leaden body to her prone form, tendrils latching onto her head desperately.  Nothing. No flicker of life left to feed on. She was gone.

"No, no, _no!_ " the carver slammed their fist against the corpse.  They rounded on the green drow kneeling a few feet away.  "You _stupid animal_!  Do you know what you've cost me?"

The creature held his side with one hand, regarding his own blood with a dazed expression.  "It's all…just so unnecessary," he said.

"You _can't_ be this naive," Gol choked on wrath and disbelief.  "You were a goblin once! Do you remember _nothing_ of how the world works?"

"Of course I remember!" the creature shouted, cheeks flushing a deep green.  It was the first time Gol saw anger contort one of those placid faces. "But I thought the world would be different if -- _I'm_ different now.  I'm --"

" _Stupid_ ," Gol said again.  "And it may cost us both our lives."

"There's no need to be cruel," the creature admonished.

"I'm not," Gol forced their body to stand, hands propped against weak knees.  "I do not feed anyone false hopes. I do not _pretend_ at feelings or friendship." Gol's breath came in shallow bursts, their voice harsh.  "I do not _claim_ I want to help someone and then doom them to a slow death!"   

"You think I followed you for _days_ out of some -- some twisted -- _I was concerned!"_ the creature hissed.  "You might not be one of _us_ , but you're still a follower of That Which Endures."

"That Which Endures does not care about me.  Or anyone for that matter. It will not thank you for your concern," Gol said.  "And neither will I."

 

* * *

 

"He won't stop following me," Gol groused, arms folded tight across their chest.  The translucent image of K'thriss wavered and rippled like a disturbed reflection on a pond.  The dream space became harder to link as Gol grew weaker. "I was so close! There was a scouting party --"

"Gol," K'thriss interrupted gently, so quiet the mind flayer almost couldn't hear him, "you've told me this story.  More than once."

"I have?" Gol's tendrils twitched in consternation.  A cold sensation settled in their aching gut. "…How many times?"

"Only a few," K'thriss said.  The drow's voice sounded oddly constricted.  Gol curled inward as they tried to recall the conversation.  They'd just started, hadn't they?

"How long have we been talking?" they asked.

"A few hours, maybe," the warlock answered.

The carver shook their head, trying to absorb the information.  

"Gol, I…" The warlock fell into silence.  He shook his head, mouth pressed in a flat line, a short hitch of breath emitting from the base of his throat.  He brought his fingers up to tug his ear, the glyph on the back of his hand clear and bright.

"I know, Beloved," Gol assured him.  "I know." The illithid paused, trying to find something comforting to say.  "I may still find suitable prey. I was so close! There was a scouting party in the canyon below me," Gol told him, watching the warlock's brow tighten.  As they continued their tale, K'thriss' smile became more strained, almost wounded.

Gol had no idea why.

 

* * *

 

On the fifty-seventh day -- or was it sixty-seventh? -- Gol awoke to the odor of charred flesh.

The beast thrust a skewer of fungus and burned grub segments into the illithid's half-awake hands.  Gol stared at the incomprehensible offering. As they watched, the disparate chunks liquefied and flowed down the thin blade into a whole creature.  A worm with an infinite number of writhing legs. It twisted, dimensions shifting, and chittered at Gol. The mind flayer blinked. The vision reverted back to perfectly ordinary globs of very dead insect.  Gol tossed it away.

"I can't eat this," Gol said, too weary to give the words bite.

"At least try it," the green drow replied, dusting off a fallen mushroom and returning it to Gol's claws.  The illithid wrested their hands away from the creature's too-warm grasp.

"I am a _mind flayer._  I eat _minds,"_  the illithid hissed.

"I know, but there’s got to be an alternative to murder."

"I'm no more capable of digesting what _you_ consider food than that thing on your back," Gol growled, gesturing to the fist-sized spider clinging to the creature's side.  The beast looked over his shoulder just as it sank hungry mandibles through cloth and flesh, but he didn't react, even as venom foamed around the wound.  He shook his head, crouching next to the illithid.

“Does it have to be alive?  Maybe we can find a beetle. Something that’s not a person,” he said.

“Do you think I feed on sentience for the _fun_ of it?” Gol asked, the entire conversation feeling increasingly unreal.  One moment they saw a drow, then a goblin, shifting from grotesque to ordinary and back again.  “ _You_ can pretend some forms of life are more moral to eat than others.  _I_ can’t.”

“Is that why you’re always so,” the beast moved his hand restlessly, a string of nonsense signs, “harsh?”

“Should I be _kind?_ Let my food think it’s safe, when I might eat them the next day?  Some illithid enjoy that kind of farce, but I don’t have the stomach for it.”

The beast’s eyebrows gathered in what the mind flayer guessed was disbelief.  The illithid huffed, pulling out their knife. Only one reasonable way to settle this.  They proffered the blade, hand unsteady.

"Open me," Gol insisted.  "You’ll see. The organs are entirely different."

The creature leaned back, hands raised with palms out.  The skin of his fingers shifted from green to a pale blue. _Genuine. Truthful. Nothing held back._ "I'm not going to kill you, Carver," he said.  “I’m a friend.”

“You’re delusional,” the illithid replied. They moved to draw their knife, wanting to feel its comforting weight, but it wasn't in its sheath.  Belatedly they found it in their hand and wondered how it got there. "Because of you, I'll never make it to the black alter."

"The black altar?" the creature asked.

"Where That Which Endures first spoke to me," Gol replied, voice falling low, "Changed me."  They ran a finger down the length of the blade. There was no pain, but a well of blue liquid seeped out.  Gol stared at it, hearing whispers. "Do you know how long my people live?" they asked the beast.

"You're the only illithid I know," said the animal.  "And you don't share much."

"Little more than a single century," Gol told him, "but I have seen well over two hundred years."  A bead of blood gathered near the tip of their finger, catching the firelight. They rolled the pale digit, watching the drop slide down flesh, a glistening trail marking its passage.

"You've worshiped That Which Endures that long?" the creature settled slowly to a sitting position, gingerly favoring the side where the spider suckled on his flesh.  He placed a hand over the spot, displacing the arachnid, which waved several irate legs at him. The green drow continued to act as though it did not exist. "What can you, uh," the beast cleared his throat, a break in his normally even tones, "tell me of That Which Endures?"

Gol met his eyes across the fire, the skin on the illithid's brow rising.  A flush of deeper green bloomed on the animal's face. The spider crept up to his shoulder and perched there.

"I thought _your people_ were the _future,_ " Gol said.  "I am of the _past_ , you said.  My role is _done._  I helped create _you,_ " their tendrils bunched sardonically.  "I can't tell you how _proud_ I am," Gol sneered. 

The spots of color on his cheeks spread as the creature's mouth turned down in a scowl of anger.  Gol delighted in knowing they'd put it there. "We can still benefit from your knowledge, Carver," the beast said, attempting to regain their calm cadence, but tension tightened the words.  "You know more about our god than anyone alive."

Perhaps the drow-like features and flush reminded Gol of K'thriss, ever eager to explore new mysteries.  Maybe someone valuing their knowledge appeased their vanity. Most likely, their impending death prompted morose sentimentality.

The droplet of blood pooled at the base of the mind flayer's palm, clung briefly, and fell.

Someone should hear their secrets.  Even an animal little better than food.

"Do you know why a god of dissolution is named 'That Which Endures'?" Gol asked.  The creature said nothing, but sat forward slightly. Gol did not wait for him to reply before continuing, "It is the only force that increases in power as everything else falls apart."

The carver swiped their finger through the fallen droplet, leaving a long smear across the stone.  The line of liquid bubbled, bulged, sprouted into another writhing worm with too many legs to count.  Gol watched it skitter away, form elongating and taking on new dimensions as it vanished into darkness.

"The heat within me warms the earth and air around my body. The cost is another moment of my life, a little more wear never fully recovered, and the result serves no purpose.  It is the erosion of existence we all must fall to. That heat spreads outward, losing potency with each passing instant. Until everything becomes still again. The lost essence feeds That Which Endures.  When all worlds are ended, all planes merged, all heat dispersed, everything in the universe will be equal. Equally useless. Equally dead. Except for That Which Endures, for it can only grow."

In the shadow beyond the fire, Gol heard the worm's legs clicking against the stone.  The sound echoed, folding back on itself, multiplying.

"It is a god of destruction?" the beast's frown deepened.

"No," Gol said.  "It is a god of _loss._ "  The illithid chuckled, wry humor tinging their weariness.  "I should have seen it earlier. I lost my connection to my people.  My role in prophecy. My reward." They leaned back against frigid stone.  "Now you've taken my last chance to reach the black altar," Gol closed their eyes and sighed, "perhaps this is as it should be."

"No.  I swear I will help you reach it," the creature said solemnly.  

Gol slitted their eyes open, suspicious.  "Why?"

"You granted me mercy," the beast answered. "Saved my life --"

The illithid burst into raucous laughter. "Stupid, _stupid_ animal!" they wheezed, breathless.  "The drow was a threat. You served as a distraction.  As for _mercy,_ " even the word felt distasteful in their mouth, "I cannot eat you. Your misguided _pity_ is poison to me."

"Pity?" the beast sputtered.  "I don't pity you!"

Gol snorted, turning a level gaze at the creature, who looked away.  "I've tasted it," Gol said. "You think me so unfortunate for not being _chosen_ like you…"  

The carapace of the worm caught the light as it emerged from the darkness and crawled up the side of the green drow, driving the spider off his shoulder.  The beast did not respond, even as the worm wrapped around his head like a crown. The rest of its length draped across the green skin of his face and neck, looping over his chest, pooling in writhing coils on the ground nearby. The thin line of its body trailed off beyond the limits of Gol's sight.  They watched the undulating legs, listening to the click of countless segments.

"You deserve more pity than I," Gol said.  "My service is nearly at an end. But you? Everything you've gained, you'll one day lose.  Just like me."

 

* * *

 

"K'thriss!" even as the name left their throat, they knew it a futile effort.  Gol could not reach him. The dream space would not form.

As it should be.  

Better this way.  

Preferable to die alone.

Gol resented lies.  These stung most of all.

 

* * *

 

They did not know how many days had passed.  Only where they must go.

The black altar drew them closer with every faltering step.  Sometimes their fingers braced against walls of rock. Other times a burning warmth wrapped around their shoulders, lifting, dragging, shoving them onward.  They looked down and saw a spider grown fat from feeding on flesh, clinging to green skin leaving a trail of red in the dirt. They looked up and saw one of their own, facial tendrils healthy and moist curling in acknowledgement, woven through a crown of twitching legs and shadow.  

Something wasn't right.

Gol stumbled.  

They recovered quickly, loath to show any sign of weakness to their fellow illithid, broadcasting calm and self-assurance through their web of shared thought.  The elder brain tasked their inquisition with uncovering the source of a strange energy seeping from the north.

Their party consisted of seven members, with a train of roughly a dozen attendant slaves, less now than when they set out.  Their stomach pulsed with a dull ache of hunger. Tonight they should feed.

One among the gathered mind flayers was an excellent chef, skilled at coaxing full flavors from even the dullest goblin or most brainwashed worshiper.  Illithid took as much pride in the preparation of a meal as the drow with their mushroom pies and fungal wine. Some tastes required a slow marinade of trust, built up over months, if not years, to reach the height of crisp betrayal or rich devotion.  Others needed careful cultivation of dread, occasionally carved or slow roasted, for the deep and complex piquancy of despair and desperation. No mind tasted quite so bittersweet as one that yearned for death.

While Gol -- When had that become their name? -- never developed an interest in such pursuits, they appreciated the results.  The inquisition ate well on this mission.

Yet hunger gnawed at the carver -- What was a carver? -- until they could think of nothing else.

One of their party paused and said, with audible words, "Where do we go now?"

Gol squinted at them, sending confusion through the link, which only deepened as their fellow illithid winced.  

"You told me to use words, remember?" their companion replied, still speaking aloud, voice calm and even. Infuriating. None of this made any sense. "Carver Gol?"

The face in front of them changed, shifting from pale translucent flesh to green skin, facial tendrils retracting to drow-shaped lips and cheeks.  

The food.  The food spoke to them.  No, not food.

Poison.  

The creature reached out and brushed a burning thumb across Gol's dry forehead.   "Do you want me to communicate the other way?" he asked.

Gol flinched and shook their head, setting off a wave of dizziness. They looked around. No other illithid. No slaves. Their mind reached out and encountered a vast emptiness.  No elder brain. Crushing loss bowed their shoulders, a wound centuries old made fresh again.

They were alone.

“Are you all right?” the green drow asked.

Well, not _entirely_ alone.

A vast cavern opened before them, grand columns of stone rising far beyond their sight.  Mist coated the ground with a slick, treacherous film. Phosphorescent growths protruded at odd angles from every surface, the only source of illumination.     

"It is close," Gol said when they remembered their voice.  

"Good," the creature sighed.  He wrapped his arms around his sides, fingers nearly touching the spider clinging to his lower back.  The arachnid had tripled in size, almost as large as Gol's head. It chuckled to itself, venomous fangs buried deep in the beast's flesh.  A sheen of sweat on the green drow's brow gave his skin a sickly, grayish cast in the dull light. His face seemed thinner than before, scars stark on once smooth features.  Lips were drawn flat and tight, breaths shallow.

Gol could not eat this creature.  So would it be wrong to care about him?

"You should kill that thing," Gol told him.

The beast looked around.  "What thing?" he asked.

The illithid snorted and swatted at the spider.  Their hand passed through it and struck the green drow's side.  With a pained expulsion of breath, he crumpled.

"Aaagghhh! Gol! What --?" the animal hissed through gritted teeth.

"There was a -- " Gol hesitated, then said, "Something isn't right there."

"I _know_ ," the beast said, "I was _stabbed_."

"Oh," Gol replied, searching their memory.  The vague image of a woman and a knife floated through their mind, an ancient recollection.  "Surely that's healed by now."

"Obviously _not,_ " the creature growled, a hint of anger bleeding into their voice.  

Gol's tendrils lapped at the air, wafting the emotion in.  The flavor brought forth images of shattered black stone and incomplete Qualith glyphs.  Budding crystal eyes. Absurd orders refused in the dark.

"Are you…smiling?" the green drow asked.  Disbelief and outrage emanated from the beast, an enticing mix.  Instinctively Gol leaned closer, hungry. On an impulse, they put out their hand.

"Illithid do not smile," Gol said seriously, but their tendrils continued to dance.  "We lack the lips and teeth for it."

The creature clasped the proffered hand and Gol pulled him up.  His outrage dissipated, replaced by confusion and…something else.  Something almost fond. Gol pulled back quickly.

"I suppose they do not joke, either?" the creature asked, brow raised.

"Not as you define it," Gol replied.  Some mind flayers took amusement in playing with their food.  Such sport might be considered a joke of sorts. They shared no word play because they shared no words.  Other races found delight in turns of phrase, laughing at the limitation of language rather than railing against it.  They deliberately obscured meaning, passing misleading sentences back and forth in games between friends.

That was another reason mind flayers did not have jokes: they did not have friends.  

Their hand still prickled with warmth from the brief contact.  They shook it out, wiping it against their robes.

Of course, mind flayers did not call anyone _Beloved_ either.

The heat would not fade from their palm.  Gol stared at it, closing their three fingers into a loose fist. _Forbidden._

"But I am no more _just_ an illithid than you are _just_ a goblin," they said, and turned away.  "Come. The altar is at the bottom of the chasm."  

When Gol first found this sacred place, they levitated down, leaving behind their cluster of fearful slaves to set up camp.  The seven members of the illithid inquisition floated into the depths, by-passing the difficult terrain. A simple task for a well-fed mind flayer of Gol's abilities.  Impossible when weakened by starvation. Their green companion fared little better. Both of them crept forward on all fours, feet and fingers carefully picking out handholds on the incline as they made their descent.  Gol's body fell into a rhythm, limbs numb and distant. Hunger weighed down every movement, heart laboring in a dull throb to pump diluted, thin fluids through their veins. The icy, wet stone felt unreal beneath the pads of their fingers.

The black altar's call dragged them onward.  

Gol felt it first, conveying the sensation to the rest of the inquisition.  A pocket of…uncertainty. Especially strange to mind flayers, who lived in the perpetual confidence of the elder brain's higher consciousness.  A resounding wave of revulsion flowed from illithid to illithid in the web of thought as they rejected the invading influence. Despite that, a spark of intrigue flared within Gol.  They buried it deep, where their companions could not sense it, and floated forward.

The crevasse cut short in a small cliff, carved by an underground river which burst from the wall in a thundering waterfall, the source of the pervasive mist.  Over eons the cascade bore a circular hole into the stone, forming a spherical oubliette with smooth walls. Where decades earlier there might have been a lake, now only a small pool gathered at the bottom of this formation.  A weak patch of rock had given way near the bottom, draining the space and letting the river continue its journey through the Underdark.

The inquisition hovered above the surface of the pool, attention focused on the only thing left untouched by the water's erosive force.  An altar of black stone, carved with four jagged lines. Not Qualith, but full of power nonetheless, a glyph the eye struggled to perceive and the mind twisted to grasp.  It burned, hot and overwhelming, and the inquisition shied away.

Except for Gol.  The spark of intrigue kindled into curiosity, then burst into yearning.  They needed to _know_.

These forbidden thoughts reached the other illithid just as Gol placed their hand on the stone.

There was only enough time for an instant of betrayal.

Power rushed into Gol, but they were an imperfect vessel.  Their body could not contain such a vast force. The excess spilled outward as heat, vaporizing the water of the pool, igniting the air, and immolating the inquisition.  Solid stone turned molten, the walls dripped, steam scalded as the river continued pouring water into the furnace of the oubliette.

Gol felt their body changing to better absorb the essence of this timeless entity.  _Unity,_ it said to them as they screamed in agony.  _That Which Endures_ , it named itself as their mind abandoned all hope of comprehension.  _See,_ it demanded as light consumed their eyes.

Planets collided, stars died, voids devoured one another.  The mind flayer had never glimpsed the sky, yet knew these massive bodies.  One by one each disintegrated and the power of That Which Endures expanded. Mountains crumbled, forests burned, animals decomposed.  Here too, That Which Endures grew. Red blood dripped into water and vanished, dispersed by an unseen force, heat of life lost to colder surroundings.  Time marched forward and That Which Endures increased with every step.

Gol began to understand. The knowledge upended previous truths, exposing the certainty of the elder brain as a pathetic lie.  Their line was not eternal, their accumulated wisdom far from infinite. Even their control was limited, for now Gol stepped beyond it and knew it to be weak and fragile.  The elder brain, like all things, would come to an end.

All things, except That Which Endures.

With that thought, the presence of their new god vanished.  Gol's body hummed with its power, their skin hot and inflamed, no longer just an illithid.  They were changed.

They were the future.                 

Gol wedged their foot into a crack and felt the stone give way as they shifted their weight to it.  They skidded down the slick slope, hands grasping for any hold, when abruptly there was nothing but air beneath them.  They fell, landing hard, breath driven out of their lungs as their body slammed into a shallow pool of freezing water. Stone shattered into sharp edged fragments beneath them.  No, not stone. Glass. They sat up, coughing and spitting, trying not to cut their hands on the shards. They shivered, cold and dazed.

A green drow landed next to them with a splash, staggered, and fell to his knees. Gol stared at his scarred face, trying to place the man's features. They knew each other?  This strange companion opened his hand in front of the mind flayer's face. A particularly inquisitive tentacle reached out and poked the skin before Gol could reel it in. Hot. That felt familiar.

Gol clasped the man's hand and he hauled them to their feet. The green drow swayed with the effort, and for a moment they leaned on each other for balance.  Emotions trickled through the contact and the sense of recognition grew. It was almost...a comfort.  

Gol placed a hand on their companion’s shoulder.  Then drew away.

They oriented themself in both time and space, sloshing forward against the weak current toward the center of the oubliette, each step cracking glass underfoot.  They were close now. So close. Sparks of illusory color burst and faded in their vision. The power of That Which Endures buzzed in the air, vibrated in their bones, pressed against their skin.  Their journey finished, the answers they needed at hand. The black altar was right…

Here.

Gol stood, stunned, before a pile of ordinary, crumbled, dull gray stone.  The green drow came up next to them.

"Where is it?" he asked.      

Gol silently sat on the chilled, misshapen rocks and buried their head in their hands.  Had K'thriss been there, he would have recognized the tendril motions. _Distress. Distress. Distress._

"Gone," the carver said.  

An intake of breath met this pronouncement.  "Are you sure? Perhaps you're confused."

"I'm dying, not lost," Gol growled.  

"But -- But I _feel_ it," the man insisted.  "The altar must be here! I didn't come all this way for nothing!"  

Gol looked up as palpable frustration rolled off the green drow.  The illithid found a soothing camaraderie in his anger, letting it wash over them.

"I thought you came because you were _concerned_ for me," Gol said.

"I did!" the reply too quick.

Gol met his gaze, brow raised.  The man glanced away, then sighed, coming to sit beside the mind flayer on the pile of stone.  He picked up a small rock, tossing it into the pool. "You aren't the only one seeking answers, Carver."

Gol leaned back and laughed until their abdomen ached.  The green drow's scowl deepened, face flushing, which only made Gol laugh harder.

"Can you believe," they said, when they regained a modicum of composure, "that I'd truly started to think you were here out of _kindness_?"

"What a relief this must be," the man said, voice flat, "to discover I'm just as much a fool as you."

"There are worse things," Gol replied.  They set elbows on knees, looking down into the water.  The sparks of color still danced in their vision, winking at them from the glass floor.  Gol shook their head, but could not clear it. The light persisted.

"Why did you choose me?" the green drow asked, drawing legs close to his body.  

Gol's tendrils shrugged.  "You were nearby."

The man shook his head.  "Unbelievable. The others didn't want me to go.  They felt you needed to come to our way of thinking on your own.  I thought someone should at least _try_ to meet you halfway.”

“How very --” Gol began.

“Yes, I know. _Stupid,”_ their companion said with an irate wave.

“I was going to say it was _charitable_ of you,” Gol said.

A snort of wry humor.  “No, you weren’t.”

Gol’s tendrils danced as they chuckled.  

“Lucky for you, though.  If you’d asked anyone else, they'd have refused to follow," the man told him.

"I don’t know if I’d call that _luck._  It _is_ quite a coincidence," Gol said, but it didn't feel that way.  It had the aura of a portent. Gol banished the thought. "I can't believe in prophecy anymore," they said, knitting clawed fingers together.  "I want it too much."

"Having been _chosen_ ," the man said, one corner of his mouth pulled back in a half smile, "the honor is overrated."

Gol regarded their companion, watching the crown of writhing legs upon his head flicker in and out of sight.  "I warned you," the illithid said, "it is a god of loss."

"I didn't understand until now," he replied.

"You still don't," Gol told him.  "But perhaps you have a better idea than the rest.  Maybe they'll even listen to you, when you go back."

Silence fell between them.  A deep pain stained the air, sour and bitter.  The man's lips grew tight across his face.

"I won't make it back," he said.  "I don't know if the blade was poisoned, or if it's infection, but…"  He clutched his side. The shadow of a fat spider danced around his hand.  He picked up another stone and threw it into the water. The ripples warped the sparks of light, distorting them. Gol leaned forward, squinting at the shifting colors. Surely this was another hallucination?

As the pool stilled, the motes resolved into distinct shapes.  Tiny, nearly imperceptible, Unity glyphs.

Gol plunged forward into the pool on hands and knees, scooping up a shard of glass.  The lights flickered within it, there one instant, gone the next, unpredictable and ever shifting.  The smooth, sharp surface was cold to the touch, but Gol could feel the essence of That Which Endures resonating within it.  This is what they felt. Not an altar of stone, but the oubliette itself.

They chuckled. Then laughed. " _Ha!_ It wasn't about the heat. It was _never_ about the heat," they said, turning to their companion.  The green drow stared at them with wide eyes.

"Look!"  Gol exclaimed, holding out the shard.  The man took it, studying the surface intently.  Gol pointed at each glyph as it flared and dimmed.  "There, and there. Unity."

The green drow set the shard back in Gol's hand.  Hopeless despair radiated through the contact. "Gol," he said quietly, "I don't see anything."

"It was _changed_ ," Gol said.  "Just as we were.  But this loses nothing.  It's contained. Fluid, but static.  As I have been these centuries. We're not _chosen._  We're the _glass_!"

"I don't understand."

Gol growled in frustration. "Damn these _words,"_ they snapped, body vibrating with a revelation they could not articulate.  Their mind felt stretched, fraying at the edges. Time slipped away moment by moment, and with every second the power of That Which Endures swelled in their thoughts, chaotic ideas threatening to overwhelm them.  Gol grabbed the man's hand, shoving his scalding palm against their forehead. "Speak in another way," they demanded. "I know you can."

The man took a deep breath and met their eyes.

It was not what an illithid would use. No web of interconnected thought and fluid sensation. _Equal, but not equivalent,_ Gol thought, and felt rather than heard the man agree.  The connection made, carver poured the sum of their understanding across the bridge in a cascade of ideas.  A torrent of uncertainty that somehow felt like an answer.

For a moment the flow met resistance.  The concepts were too large, too convoluted, a mass held together by clinging madness and thinning reason.  Gol wrestled with their own eagerness, pulling at disparate strands of logic and irrational leaps of intuition, even as the certainty of their revelation slipped away.  Doubt began to creep in, but they did not fight it. Instead Gol surrendered control to their companion. The presence of the green drow grew as he sorted through the loose concepts, picking up each in turn, trying to separate information already anticipated from what challenged his expectations. 

Ignorance.  Ignorance was the key.

The value of questions.

The man pulled his hand away, but the heat of his skin lingered on Gol's brow.  "You have to go back," he said, voice hushed with reverence. "The others must know."

Gol gazed at the glass, dazzled by the winking Unity glyphs.  It took them several moments to realize they were being addressed.

"My dissolution is at hand," the carver said, "I have no time left."  Their eyes wandered across the pool, images of their old inquisition staring back from the water with wrathful eyes.  Gol turned away from the grim phantoms, awkwardly patting their companion’s back, fingers stiff. "Your wound will heal.  They will listen to you."

"Must you argue with _everything_?" the green drow sighed.

Gol's tendrils shrugged.  "I've been told I am insolent and contrary."

"Whoever said that knows you well," the man huffed with a half smile.

"Yes," Gol replied.  "And yet he still enjoys my company.  I confess, it mystifies me."

Gol traced the glyph of The Ur idly across the shard in their hand.  They looked around for dust or mud, but there was only water, glass, and stone.  How would they leave their Tetrathanotica? K'thriss would want to see it.

Blood would serve.  They took out their knife.  "I've a favor to ask," they said.  "Could you take a stone back with you?  Just a small one." They set the blade against their fingertips.  "I'd like you to give it to him."

The warm hand of their companion closed about Gol's fingers just before the illithid started their cut.

"If you fed," the man said, "you'd be strong enough to leave."

That line of thought disturbed the carver.  "You are poison to me," Gol reminded him.

"Not anymore.  You were right, I _did_ pity you.  I know better now," the man's voice took on a fervent intensity.  "This wound will kill me. A slow death. But if you feed on me --"

"No," Gol interrupted.  "I don't eat…"

"What?"

" _Equals._ "  The word nearly stuck in their throat.  What an appalling thought they'd come to in these final moments.

"This isn't about you, Carver," the green drow said. "This is about That Which Endures.  If I sacrifice my life for our god, that is _my choice._  Would you deny an _equal_ that?"

Gol opened their mouth to protest, but the worm around the man's head uncoiled, turning toward the mind flayer.  Gol felt the weight of its attention crush their will. They bowed their head.

"Our god _did_ become cruel while imprisoned," Gol whispered. 

"I was a goblin," the green drow said.  "I remember how the world works. It has always been cruel."  He placed his hand on the illithid's shoulder. "But I am changed now.  I can choose to be kind."

Gol shook their head, a formless anger churning in their belly, warring with rising hunger.  "I see very little difference," the illithid said.

The man smiled, leaning forward to present his skull like an offering.  The tentacles reached outward of their own volition, eager to survive even if Gol was not.  The scent of sustenance overwhelmed their reason and despite the refusal screaming through their mind, their mouth opened.  Their body intended to live, heedless of the cost. Gol was too weak to stop it.

"Perhaps soon you will," their friend said, just as Gol began to feed.

 

* * *

 

"What was his name?" K'thriss asked, sitting across from them, solid and whole in the dream space.

"I don't know," Gol replied.  "I kept his memories. His knowledge.  But I sensed he wanted his name given to That Which Endures.  I honored that request."

K'thriss tilted his head in acknowledgement.  "An appropriate offering for a god of dissolution."

Gol nodded. Dissolution. Disorder. Loss. All the wrong words.  Their god was too large for language or thought.  Even now, their realizations from the oubliette faded.  Concepts clear in the midst of madness turned to confusion in the grip of orderly thinking.  The only certainty Gol retained was That Which Endures wished this to be so.

Their god no longer held itself at an indifferent remove.  It guided events with purpose. Whether their life was shaped by coincidence or prophecy, Gol no longer knew or cared.  The answers they might fabricate would always be incomplete. Largely without value. Only the questions mattered. The acceptance of ignorance.  

This wisdom tasted bittersweet.

"He hoped to change me," Gol's tendrils folded upon one another, the fourth a little shorter than the rest. "I fear he succeeded."

K'thriss moved closer, pulling the illithid to him.  Gol leaned their head on the drow’s shoulder. The warlock’s skin radiated warmth through his cloak.  The carver shivered.

“I let him become an equal.  A friend,” Gol said. “Was that wrong?”

“I sometimes wonder,” K’thriss replied, thoughtful, “if greeting even strangers as a friend renders the term meaningless.  If someone who betrays me is just a much a friend as someone who has not…” he trailed off, and Gol heard an unspoken _yet_ hover in the air.  “Then what does it mean?  Is it a request? A prediction?  Or just...habit?” K’thriss shook his head.  “But then someone will answer in kind and make it true.” His hand squeezed Gol’s shoulder and the glyph beneath his skin flared.  “I don’t know about right or wrong, but when it happens, it seems significant.”

“But you never _killed_ one of your friends,” Gol countered, tendrils twisting.  _Distress, distress, distress._

An odd smile spread across K’thriss’ face.  One the illithid had not seen before.

“Not exactly,” he said, voice distant and hushed.  “Not in this course of events.”

A dull red glow pulsed beneath his blindfold.  The warlock’s unseeing gaze fixed on a distant point, his entire body still. 

He cleared his throat and rested his cheek against the top of Gol’s head.  The ruby light winked out.

“Loss is inevitable,” K’thriss continued, “but shouldn’t it mean something?”

Gol felt a prickle of heat on their palm.  A small mote of light flashed just beneath their skin, then faded.

Unity.

“Yes.” Gol answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sure, this may look like a story about faith and sacrifice, but actually it's just a fictional rendition of an inquisitive mind transitioning from a thermodynamic understanding of entropy (related to heat loss) to more modern interpretations that are based on disorder or statistical ignorance in a world that doesn't have ANY of those concepts or the scientific method. 
> 
> Yes, I know, I'm a nerd. BUT THIS STUFF IS ACTUALLY REALLY COOL AND MIND BENDY AND AWESOME. If you'd like to read more about entropy, [this resource is pretty great.](http://pages.physics.cornell.edu/~sethna/StatMech/EntropyOrderParametersComplexity.pdf) Don't be too put off by it being a text book, it's written for a broad demographic so it's not as math/science heavy and built to be accessible. It's also got a lot of sass in the foot notes. My god. So much sass. You'll want Chapter 5 for the entropy stuff.
> 
> Alternatively, if you prefer your scientific papers full of salt and Opinions about How Ridiculous The Old Days Were (as if theorists won't say the same things about us in a hundred years) then [this paper ranting against the dogma of Thermodynamic acolytes](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Ulanowicz/publication/251007202_Increasing_Entropy_Heat_Death_or_Perpetual_Harmonies/links/547f454e0cf2ccc7f8b91aa3/Increasing-Entropy-Heat-Death-or-Perpetual-Harmonies.pdf) is pretty good too.


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